“You know if we needed their robes it would have made more sense to strip them before you threw axes into their bodies, Adam” Matilda nagged at Adam as they slipped on the hooded robes over the top of their clothes. The smell of smoke filled the air still, though they had made the effort to put out all of the fires and save a good chunk of the cottage, it still reeked.
“So, should we ditch the Earth clothes now? The robe is surprisingly comfortable and my clothes are getting down right disgusting.”
“What, you haven’t washed since we got here?” Matilda asked, raising a brow.
Adam and Brian both stood there silently.
“Oh my god, both of you. I’ve washed myself and my clothes several times over between our near death experiences.”
“Well, I’m asking about it now aren’t I?” Brian meekly tried defending himself.
Adam and Brian both slipped on the robes as their only clothes for now, though the bloodstains and cuts in the fabric from the axe that Adam used were not ideal, it was really nice to get into fresh clothes.
“We sort an outfit change out once we get back in the city I suppose.” Adam planned away as usual.
“No matter the clothing, how do we exactly get into the city and what do we do from there. You want to look for Hammy or Vincent first?” Matilda questioned.
“Well, the church is near the eastern side of the city so I’m assuming the east gate will be fine to re enter through. I would prefer to stay the night and get there early tomorrow when it picks up and gets busy but seeing as they may just come back to this farm tonight I guess we need to leave soon. We won’t get there until dark but hopefully it’s fine.”
“You’re worried about the guards?” Brian questioned.
“Yeah, well running into our fellow robe wearers will be the toughest spot but the guards is the first guaranteed spot we need to get through so I’m concerned about getting past that step, once we are actually inside the city we can hopefully manoeuvre our way to Vincent without being seen or bothered by other priests, or Cult Acolytes as the hiker menu seems to call them.”
“Some type of Oakish Death Cult huh?” Matilda chuckled to herself. No one else seemed to understand her joke. Adam sure didn’t and just gave a tiny smirk out of politeness.
Brian continued to question “I’m sorry, I just want to feel prepared. So we go to Vincent first right?”
“Yeah, well for Hammy he is likely to be in the church or with Fargo himself is even a possibility so it’s smarter to go after Vincent first who should be safe, he is loved by the city after all.” Adam added.
“Yeah of course Vincent first, we need him to help us and help Hammy.” Matilda was pacing around the room, seeming a little nervous and a little stressed.
“Hopefully their history doesn’t make it awkward” Adam wanted to bring this up. His team mates looked at him like he was crazy.
“I know they do have some intense history but I’m sure Vincent will help a friend in need, don’t be silly.” Matilda explained.
“Yeah, hopefully.” Adam didn’t bother worrying over the various small gut feelings he was having, they had to leave soon.
The team collected themselves and headed out the front door of the cottage. They didn’t need to prepare too much, they had their outfit, Brian had his axe and Matilda and Adam had their idol and ring specifically, those weren’t going anywhere.
Walking down the winding path that linked the cottage and farmland to the main road out of the city, they looked back at the cottage, Adam knew he had to see Hammy safe and well again before he would be satisfied. The cottage had it’s entire right side burned down to a crisp, larger planks had fell down to the floor and were sticking out at sharp angles. Outside on the left side Adam could see the mess he made with his psychokinesis, when he threw all those wooden logs and planks through the hallway some had burst through the wall of the cottage and a small fire had started there as well, they had put it out when they put the rest of the fires out but it spread further than they would have liked in all of the chaos.
They joined the main road again and headed back the way they had come from towards the city, towards the tree, its crystalline purple leaves shone bright as always, Adam still found the sight of the tree mesmerising every time, it did make quite the landmark.
Adam asked about their experience with the hiker menu both to gather information on it and to simply make conversation on the way to the city.
“So, just to double check, you guys also can’t actually see anything far down on the skill tree right? Like they are just greyed out icons and you can’t focus on them and see what they actually do?”
They nodded.
Brian shared his experience with Hammy “Yeah, Hammy told me what a few of them do but I didn’t take notes down or anything, but I have a general idea of the different paths he saw in his journey at least. Seems kind of weird now that you mention it.”
Adam extended his arms out “Exactly! How are we supposed to plan out our skill tree when we can only see the next direct choices, barely a choice really.”
“Well, maybe for you and your strange class it is a big issue. Vincent told me quite a lot about the cleric skill tree, I’m actually looking forward to how strong I’ll be able to get.” This was the most confident Adam had seen Matilda since they had started their journey together.
“Yeah yeah, I’ll meet another Psion at some point and sort it out.” Adam stated.
They kept walking along the road, getting closer to the city after sharing their views on their power and class system
Adam noticed that Matilda had her hood down all the way over her hair and face for the entire walking trip. He was about to ask her why she didn’t just keep it off for now when he remembered that she would stick out like a sore thumb in the city, he certainly hadn’t seen any cultists that were women.
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He frowned looking up at the tree that he now had to stretch his neck to even see the top of.
“We will have to be quick, straight to The Cats Cradle, if we can find Cynthia or Vincent we should be good to hide out a little and maybe get some new clothes, though we should definitely keep these robes handy, they would be our only ticket into the church.”
“I still think all of this is crazy, but sure.” Brian wiped sweat off his brow.
“Can you guys walk any slower” Adam complained, it felt like the whole walk from the cottage to the city so far he had been going at a snails pace for the sake of Brian and especially Matilda.
“Well actually, I feel like this is the fastest I have ever walked anywhere. I think all this running around and almost dying has improved my fitness!” Matilda fired back. “Plus, it’s probably agility right, we don’t all have whatever agility you have, wouldn’t hurt with the speed I’m sure.”
Adam had to concede that point “Yeah fair enough.” He checked his menu to confirm his stats.
Strength - 15
Agility- 46
Intelligence- 23
Cast Speed- +30%
They seemed slightly higher than last time he checked, the system didn’t confirm any particular stat changes but he could only guess levelling up improved the stats by a few points.
“Yeah, forty-six agility.”
“Besides, if I have the highest intelligence, it should really be myself making the decisions shouldn’t it?” Matilda said with her hands stretching above her head and a yawn.
“Okay, okay. My bad, we are making good pace anyway from the looks of it, we might get there before it’s completely dark. So fair enough.”
They continued on for another fifteen minutes before the eastern gates of the city came into view. It was only just beginning to get dark, perfect timing to have some darkness as cover so they didn’t stick out but to also not draw any attention for the time of night they would be arriving and needing to get inside the city Adam thought.
“If we get asked anything, I’ll speak for us, you two sit back unless directly addressed, or if being silent is suspicious for whatever reason.” Adam explained.
“Because you are the one who actually looks like a priest of the church?” Matilda asked with some judgement in her tone.
“Right.” He didn’t deny the truth.
Approaching the gates, Adam tried to act natural, walking in front of the other two, he was relieved to see the gate was still open, it would be closed pretty soon, he was surprised it wasn’t closed already actually. Multiple guards stood at the gate, facing out to the road in their black and red coats, holding their shields with oaken emblems, similar to the emblem they had stitched on the robes they had stolen.
They passed through silently, Adam felt like he was going to explode, he started having intrusive thoughts about casting his truth compulsion on himself and fessing up on the entire operation to the guards there. He snapped himself out of such ridiculous things.
“You priests sure have been outside of the city a lot lately.” Adam turned his head to his left, looking at the guard they had just passed.
He didn’t want to speak too much either, while he did look the part, it wasn’t like he had the time to practice the local accent.
“Yes. Very busy.” He tried to say in a neutral tone and voice.
“Heading back to the church?”
“Yes. Reporting to do.” His natural accent slipped out a bit in this response, why was he such an idiot he wondered. All he had to do was focus on keeping a flat voice with no tone for two sentences and he let down his guard that quickly. Great, now he really had to worry.
“Have a good night, glory to Oak!” The guard saluted, craning his neck to look up at the gorgeous tree in the sky.
Adam exhaled. It was that easy.
“Glory to oak!” Brian yelled at a ridiculous volume. Adam had clearly told him not to speak.
A couple of other guards glanced over at Brian and turned back towards the road. They kept on walking through the city.
Brian nudged him in the side of his body “See, not everyone is in seven different layers of thought at all time like you buddy, we are all good.” They continued walking down the main road of the city, through the east side and towards the centre of the city where the tree stood.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think my caution was a bad idea still. That lame salute was just ridiculous. Glory to Oak!” Adam mocked him as he copied what he said, parodying his voice.
“Shut up you two, we have to make it to The Cats Cradle in one piece still. What if we run into someone still, we aren’t in the clear yet.” Matilda scolded them, as usual. She did have a point he realised.
They passed through the centre of the city safely, Matilda and Brian followed Adam closely with their hoods covering their faces entirely. The city was still fairly lively at this time, there
were still quite a few food stalls open.
They passed by a blacksmith building near the centre of the city, just off from the central plaza down a side street. Adam saw an interesting sight there. While men worked inside the blacksmith itself, there was some kind of drinks stall attached to the outside of the building, the man working the stall was using steam from the building in his drinks. This place had steamed milk, was it coffee? He wondered. That was something he truly missed, though he couldn’t smell it in the air. The man held up his steel cup of milk to a vent of steam coming out of the smith, Adam turned his head to watch as the man poured the milk into cups and served it. He didn’t see any coffee or anything else added, just the liquid that looked like milk, he wondered if the people in this city really enjoyed steamed milk on its own as a beverage.
“We can eat once we get to The Cats Cradle Adam, keep focused” Matilda noticed his complete distraction and tried to correct it.
After more walking and more avoided distractions of delicious looking street food stalls, they were near the western plaza where they could find Vincent in the inn.
“Will we draw attention walking inside the inn as three priests?” Matilda asked with caution in her voice.
“Maybe, but it’s better not to separate again, look what happened last time we separated.”
Adam just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, the sooner they were with Vincent, the sooner they would be safe and have time to reorient their plans and resources.
“Yeah, I can agree with that for sure.” Brian showed no hesitance at the idea.
The three of them marched into the inn, it seemed like quite the busy dinner service they were having on at the moment. The inn was full of chatter and had some live music playing, it was some kind of stringed instrument a man was playing but it definitely looked alien in shape and structure, with jagged edges coming off of it and multiple different areas that had strings running along different angles, running diagonally over the top of each other.
Cynthia was there, running around from table to table carrying plates of food. She made eye contact with Adam and a big smile formed on her face. That smile quickly dropped when she noticed the three of them were wearing church official robes, Adam was actually glad that she didn’t make a big scene like they knew each other, she was smart enough to avoid issues later if questioning happened.
After a few moments standing in the entrance to the inn, most eyes were on them. The musician was still trying to entertain but was slowly dropping off as he noticed he had none of the audiences attention.
Adam decided to try to be direct and act as if he really was with the church, just for the sake of quickly getting to Vincent. “We require Vincent.”
“What for?” One of the patrons in the inn yelled out at them in quite an aggressive tone. Perhaps not everyone in the city agreed with or liked the church he considered for the first time.
“Church business.” He cleared his throat, remembering he couldn’t give away his accent too much.
Cynthia come running over to them. “Last I saw he was upstairs in his normal room here, but he is in and out so often lately. You can go check.” She seemed to have some hesitance in her voice but at least she was trying to help. They climbed the stairs of the inn, the silence turned to murmurs and the musician started back up with his song as they turned to the door of the room. They knocked and coming from inside the room was a womans’ voice. “Who is it?”
“Church business, we need Vincent.” Adam was trying his best to sound official and confident but had no idea, he imagined if someone recorded it and he watched the recording he would cringe at himself.
The door swung open. “He isn’t here right now. I’m Maureen, his wife. How can I help you?”